Climate adaptation requires farmers to adjust their crop varieties over time and use the right varieties to minimize climate risk. Generating variety recommendations for farmers working in marginal, heterogeneous environments requires variety evaluation under farm conditions. On-farm evaluation is difficult to scale with conventional methods. We used a scalable approach to on-farm participatory variety evaluation using crowdsourced citizen science, assigning small experimental tasks to many volunteering farmers. We generated a unique dataset from 12,409 trial plots in Nicaragua, Ethiopia, and India, a participatory variety evaluation dataset of large size and scope. We show the potential of crowdsourced citizen science to generate insights into variety adaptation, recommend adapted varieties, and help smallholder farmers respond to climate change.
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We thank all farmers who evaluated varieties in Nicaragua, Ethiopia, and India. We also thank Vincent Johnson and Olga Spellman for editorial support and Heather Turner for support on scientific programing. Part of this research was supported by Cooperative Agreement AID-OAA-F-14-00035, which was made possible by the generous support of the American people through the US Agency for International Development. The research received financial support from McKnight Foundation Grant CCRP 16–098, German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development Contract 81194988, and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research Annual Workplan. This work was implemented as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, which is carried out with support from the CGIAR Trust Fund and through bilateral funding agreements (details are at https://ccafs.cgiar.org/donors). The views expressed in this document cannot be taken to reflect the official opinions of these organizations.